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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24554524">Life Begins at 40</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/IrisCalasse/pseuds/IrisCalasse'>IrisCalasse</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Developing Friendships, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 01:53:41</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>792</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24554524</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/IrisCalasse/pseuds/IrisCalasse</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Draco has dark thoughts on his first birthday without Astoria, but maybe he's ready to begin to move on.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Astoria Greengrass/Draco Malfoy, Hermione Granger &amp; Astoria Greengrass, Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>35</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Life Begins at 40</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>8 in the evening of June 5, 2020. His 40th birthday.</p><p>His first birthday without Astoria.</p><p>Fuck, he missed her. She’d died almost a year ago, complications of the Greengrass blood curse, and it was still hard to believe. She’d always been around, somewhere, trailing after her older sister Daphne, because there were no other girls of “correct breeding” the same age as her. And Daphne had always been around. Draco had thought that his parents might have arranged a match between the two of them, after the War, except Draco had bumped into Astoria at Flourish and Blott’s one afternoon and fallen headlong in love with her. The way she smiled at him, like she had never heard of the words “Death Eater” before. Her laugh, gentle and easy, untouched by even a shadow of the pain of the last few years. She said her parents had shipped her off to Beauxbatons for her second year, after the Diggory boy had died in the Triwizard tournament --- this Draco knew, because he’d listened to Daphne lamenting her mistake in refusing to be sent to France with her sister, that early on --- and she’d only just come back. She was applying for a job at the Ministry, she said, a liaison for France. Would he like to have tea with her? Not even six months later he was petitioning his parents for the Malfoy family ring, and she had accepted, and the rest, as they say, was history.</p><p>Draco smiled bitterly into his firewhiskey, awash in memories.</p><p>They’d been married for six years before they had Scorpius, and it wasn’t for lack of trying. But even as the Healers had congratulated them on the birth of their son, they’d also warned that the curse would start to manifest more strongly. Another pregnancy would be fatal for her, but even without one, she would begin to grow weaker. She’d held on marvelously for years, stubbornly downing potion after potion, visiting specialist after specialist, just to make it as far as their son’s first day of school. She’d stood proudly on Platform 9 3/4 and watched as the Hogwarts Express carried Scorpius away, and at home she had cried over his letter saying he’d been sorted into Slytherin. She’d laughed at Draco's anger when they found out that their son’s best friend was a Potter. And then she’d died, hardly a month after Scorpius finished his second year of Hogwarts, when they should have been enjoying the summer and having the whole family together for the first time in months.</p><p>A tear slipped down Draco’s face as he realized that he couldn’t remember the sound of her laughter.</p><p>“Draco?”</p><p>The familiar voice broke into Draco’s tearful reverie. It was a voice that, at one time --- a lifetime ago --- he’d hated hearing. But ever since Astoria had brought it back into his life, it had gradually become a voice that he tolerated, then enjoyed, then trusted. In the half-darkness of his room, his mind still trapped in the year before, he couldn’t see where she was, but he turned his head to her voice anyway.</p><p>“I knew you’d be here.”</p><p>She sounded closer. Draco struggled to speak, to say something normal, as if he hadn’t just been crying while he drank himself into a stupor. “What brings you here, Minister Granger?”</p><p>“We missed you at the party. Kind of hard to celebrate when the birthday boy isn’t around.”</p><p>He snorted mirthlessly. “I’m sure the celebrations are going just fine. I can hear the orchestra from here, and there’s no way the elves would let food or drink run out.”</p><p>“The firewhiskey seems to be free-flowing here, already.”</p><p>Her voice was a gentle rebuke, and it was right beside him now. A hand came into his line of sight. The Ministerial sigil glinted from her left ring finger, but it had no other adornments. The hand closed over the rim of his whiskey-glass and tugged it from his weak grip. Her other hand grasped his chin and turned his face up to look at her.</p><p>“Tori wouldn’t have wanted you to be alone. Not today, of all days.”</p><p>He almost laughed. <i>Tori</i>. Only Granger ever called Astoria by a diminutive. Only Granger was allowed to. Golden Girl, War Hero, youngest-ever Minister of Magic Granger, whom Astoria had idolized with a burning passion. Who was possibly the one person whom Astoria loved as much as she had loved her husband and her son. Who had loved Astoria too, because really, who <i>wouldn’t</i> love Astoria?</p><p>There was an emotion in her eyes that Draco knew were reflected in his own.</p><p><i>She</i> would understand, he knew.</p><p>Granger offered him her hand to help him up, and he took it.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Written for Draco's 40th birthday. Epilogue and Cursed Child compliant.</p><p>It's probably not a very happy birthday, Draco, but maybe your next years will be happy!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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